Information technology (IT) environments have generally moved from being primarily static to extremely dynamic, such that they require constant management for the continuously changing needs of the environment. Changes in the IT environment may include security changes, updates, modifications to user privileges, etc. To help in the management of these dynamic IT environments, electronic policies have been utilized with regard to computers on a network.
Unfortunately, managing electronic policies can be cumbersome, especially when the policies are associated with exceptionally large corporations operating up to hundreds of thousands of computers. To solve this problem, policy management systems have been employed to ease the management of electronic policies.
An example of a policy management system that has previously been employed is one that is based on a hierarchical tree structure. In these systems, an associated graphical user interface is comprised of a control panel illustrating the policies in the form of a tree, where a policy set is situated at a top of the tree. In use, the policy set is inherited downwards through the tree, and applied to corresponding networked computers.
In addition, inheritance of a policy by a computer can be broken for a given branch or even just a single computer, and a different policy can be assigned. One disadvantage of this system is that computers can only exist at a single position within the tree and can therefore receive only one set of policies.
Another example of a policy management system that has previously been employed is one that manages policies by utilizing groups. In such types of systems, each group contains a set of policies. Further, each computer can be assigned to one or more of the groups, and thus one or more of the policy sets. If a computer is assigned to more than one group, the system compares overlapping policies (i.e. policies that are exclusive of one another) and assigns the policy that is more secure.
The group policy management system solves the aforementioned problem of the hierarchical policy management systems by allowing computers to receive more than one policy. However, group policy management systems are still quite cumbersome, since each computer must be assigned individually to a group.
Current policy management systems are very complicated with respect to creating, maintaining, and applying policies. They require computers to be grouped or organized in some fashion in order for policies to be applied to the computers. These systems also require that both the administrator and the policy system create, update and manage the organizational structures, in addition to the policies. This makes it difficult and time-consuming for an administrator to manage the policies for numerous computers.
There is thus a need for overcoming these and/or other problems associated with the prior art.